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Last winter, the house we were in had a good sized atrium, and we brought in many tomato plants, other vegetables, and did our wheat grass in there, too. Kept our herbs going year round. We filtered out tap water in our Big Berkey to water the plants with. Our son did an experiment with jade plants...using tap and filtered water. The filtered water made a huge difference.

Thanks! Thats AWSOME input and just the fire to get me moving on it sooner rather than later!

Thanks again, The people on these sites have so much knowledge on so many subjects I don't see why more people don't ask more questions.....
 
Spinach is the only thing that I have had that really held up under cool weather in a covered raised bed, once it dropped down to 19 even they gave up till spring.

We've been in the low teens overnight for a while now. I'm amazed that my garlic is still going. I figured it would be dormant by now.
 
Checked the plants this morning and I see that I need to re-transplant some cabbage.... There are other plants that are not far behind.
I should have gotten more containers! I greatly under estimated the space needed for these plants. I may do a run tomorrow morning to pick up 5 more row boxes, a couple bags of potting mix, and a couple bags of slow release fertilizer.
It is becoming clear to me that for this to be sustainable I need to do a lot of recycling and a lot of composting, a couple chickens or rabbits would be good for their bi-products but that is just dreaming.

On a side note: I was doing some clean up last night and I noticed what looked like a schedule that had fallen behind my desk. It was a planting schedule from spring of 2012 clearly based on the square foot method... It has plants per foot, height requirements, transplanting viability (yes or no), growing time to maturity, and if they were vining plants. The schedule included first and last plant dates for the year and the likely harvest dates. The information is still revelant, but my methods and the number of plants that I am growing have clearly changed. Reading the paragraph above I realize that I wish I had this schedule sitting in front of me in October. ;)
 
Well things are going well and I figured I'd post progress at Growing station 2, indoor containers. The seeds were planted November 19 and the Shelves were assembled the second week of December. I am most excited about the celery in the top left container, I have never been able to grow that outdoors. It does not take much to get me excited. The potatoes and tomatoes in the bottom picture are getting ready to be moved to the "high bay" the floor is colder there and will help the potatoes to set, the tomatoes will be placed off the floor closer to the lights and to give them a little warmer climate.
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Well things are going well and I figured I'd post progress at Growing station 2, indoor containers. The seeds were planted November 19 and the Shelves were assembled the second week of December. I am most excited about the celery in the top left container, I have never been able to grow that outdoors. It does not take much to get me excited. The potatoes and tomatoes in the bottom picture are getting ready to be moved to the "high bay" the floor is colder there and will help the potatoes to set, the tomatoes will be placed off the floor closer to the lights and to give them a little warmer climate.
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Still looking good .We are waiting for greenhouse covring.
 
Last night I was working with the wife to make pots for her larger African Violets (they have outgrown most regular pots) and I bought her some self-watering pots for Christmas. The best looking (size wise) does not use a wick, wife wants a wick so I ordered some ($11/100') and will fix her pots next weekend..

This morning I woke up with a vision of LARGE (5-15 gallon) self-watering pots. The basic pot would be an old 5 gallon bucket for the inner pot supported by a simple cross made of 2 X 8? (Join them using a set of notches cut half way through the center of each) inside another 5 gallon bucket. Drill some (4-8) 5/16 holes around the inside edge of the bottom of the inside bucket, make the same number of wicks as you made holes (16" should be fine) and tie them together in a knot at one end, and lace 1 wick through each hole in the inside bucket, the result would be a bucket with what looks like a wagon hub (knot) and spokes going out to where the wicks pass out the bottom of the bucket.

The cross - I had to think about this a lot, it needs to be cheap, easy to build, sturdy (must hold the inner container without crushing), and reusable: So 1st step measure the inside diameter of the bottom of the bucket and subtract 1 inch; this is the length of your cross (Cut 2), next find the center of the pieces you just cut and make a notch the width of the board half way through the board (Do both boards), now you should be able to slide the boards together making a cross that will sit inside the outside bucket and be as tall as the widest dimension. This sets the size of your water reservoir. Fill the outside bucket with water to the height of the cross (it will want to float, so mark the bucket with a sharpie before you start so you will know what your fill line is).

Now set the inside bucket down on top of the cross the wicks should be hanging free into the water. After a few minutes check to see if the knot is wet, if it is then everything is working right. Now add soil to the inside bucket until it settles down. Put a ring of insulation rope (they call it Polyurethane Caulk Saver) all the way around between the inside of the top of the outside bucket and the inside bucket (this will control mosquitos) a 1/2" gap between the ends should be ok this could be used to fill using a drip irrigation line or to measure the water level using a dip stick.

Finish filling the inside bucket with soil and plant your plants or seeds, water lightly.

My estimate for the cost using only new materials is $33 for 1 or about $16 @ for 4: $10 for the 2 new buckets (or 2 of what ever container you are using per self watering pot), $8 for an 8' 2X (should make 4), $4 for 25' of the insulated rope (should make 8), and $11 for 100' of 1/4" wick (should make 12). If you have old materials lying around the cost could quickly come down.

Anyway I think the method could easily be used for larger square containers, I have a lot of containers sitting around and we have problems here with heavy rains followed by drought, so if the inside bucket can fill and drain into the outside bucket, the inside water level will be limited to the height of the outside bucket (hydraulic pressure will limit the inside bucket water level)

A year ago I tried something similar by just sitting 1 pot inside the other, but the inside pot sat too low in the outer pot (drowned the plant) now I think I can control the water level much better.

Sorry I rambled, but I wanted to document the idea, I now have drawings in front of me now and I know what supplies I will need to made a dozen of these in different shapes using containers I have sitting around.

I figure if I use old containers and scrap wood I can make mine for about $3 each. That sould be a good investment if it gives me some flexibility in watering requirements and uses more of the rain water we get.
 

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I transplanted 6 pots tonight, didn't want to but knew if I didn't do it now it would be too late.... I did find an old sun-bleached bucket for the inner bucket of my self watering pot, I also gathered the wood for the inside cross brace, I have the wick ordered, and plan to pick up the insulation rope on Wednesday morning as I do my end of year shopping. I plan to take pictures of building my self watering pot for my first "2021 Garden" post. ;)
 
I watched this Video on seed starting mistakes, I thought it was a good "Don't Do this" post on starting seeds.



Today I have to transplant my cucumbers, they are too big for their britches

Update: After discovering that my 2 cucumbers were actually 6, when I finished transplanting I had used up my 3 reserve bags of potting soil and all the sudden it hit me.



Note to self, with cucumbers just plant the seedlings into their final home, if it is a container fill it to the level that the plants will end up at, they don't seem to take to "back filling" so just fill the container completely at the start and don't disturb the plants after that.
 
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30dec... The last thing I'm doing for this years garden is prune my elderberry bushes. They needed it badly. I trimmed about 60% of the fruit bearing limbs. They won't produce in 2021 but will in 2022. Next winter I'll prune the 40% I left untouched. They will produce in 2023.

This summer I put up several quarts of Elder tincture that should tie me over. If I have good reason I can always harvest from the thousands of elderberry shrubs that grow wild near me.

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Question, Does anyone on this thread have much experience with container growing of non-traditional container plants? As I get more involved with this indoor gardening, I keep asking myself what other plants can I grow indoors? Would love to have more exchanges with someone with more gardening experience than I have.
I grow green beans in flower pots all year.
 
My cucumber transplants survived! I am getting ready to move some of them to better quarters.

As we come to the close of 2020 and this thread I need to say that I have learned so much that I would not have been able to do with out the events of the year.

My indoor gardening has now grown to 3 growing stations with about 20 containers per station, they are a mix of hydroponics and actually container plants.

I have learned that seedlings need space - lots of space as they grow - 10 or 20 times more space. Think about this before putting seeds into a starter pot!
I have learned that you have to keep an eye on your new seedlings, they grow fast and can become root bound if you wait too long to transplant them.
I am learning that indoor gardening needs regular attention, you may be able to automate the light but water is a different story (My plants are now needing 5 gallons of water a day).
I can see that with a 10'X10' (100 sq ft) space you and grow a lot of stuff but you will need to plan carefully from the start (it can easily get away from you).
I beleive that by combining indoor and outdoor gardening a small family can grow most of their vegetables, even on a very small plot ( less than 1000 sq feet of growing space total)


I am thankful for the opportunity to do this experiment, watching plants grow can be a very uplifting thing, even in a year like 2020.
 
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